High Watch has a rich historyconnected to both the New Thought movement and more profoundly, Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill W., co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, established High Watch Farm in 1940 as the first 12 Step treatment center in the world. The debate over the role of Alcoholics Anonymous versus the role of professional treatment can be traced back to the first days of High Watch Farm. It was at that time, AA’s future was set to remain independent from the business of “treatment” for alcoholics. Today, AA’s widespread use of the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi is attributed to Sister Francis (Etheldred Folsom), the woman who gave the farm to Bill W. in 1940. The colorful history of High Watch begins with Sister Francis.

It’s a magical tale of how Bill W. was inspired to establish the very first AA front group. Along with Wilson’s “Let’s Be Friendly with Our Friends” pamphlet, the High Watch story might be of interest to those AAs who insist that Alcoholics Anonymous has nothing to do with the whole treatment industry that has grown up around it.

This week, DeConstructor linked to a stunningly bigoted article on Christian Wire, for the purpose of drawing a comparison between the type of theological nonsense and pseudoscience that passes for reason and research among AAs and the anti-gay homobigots.

In response, SoberPJ found a post on The Evolution of Jeremiah, which he found relevant to the topic, and linked to it in the comments. Since I was away, I didn’t get a chance to see the post he linked to, or the comments left there by our readers, because Jeremiah Andrews deleted the linked post.

Not only did he delete the linked post, but he had some choice words for us, and dedicated a post to Stinkin’ Thinkin’, called “Stinking Thinking“, which is comprised of a giant picture down the barrel of a gun, a cut/paste of our about page, a lot of “fuck you”s and “fuck off”s, and a threat of legal action if we don’t “cease and desist.” He also left us a serenity bomb in the comments section of DeConstructor’s post.

Since we have been disinvited from commenting on Jeremiah’s blog, I will respond to him here:

Jeremiah Andrews, you can put your Serenity Gun down. You’ll notice, if you read the original post, that it is not about you or your blog. One of our members found a post on your blog relevant to the topic at hand, and provided a link. You might also notice that the comments on the thread in question are about the Christian Wire article; not about you. Regardless, linking to someone’s public blog is not an actionable offense, nor is commenting on a blog — nor is criticizing someone’s public work.

(What is potentially actionable is posting a picture of a gun aimed at the camera, under which you provide someone’s contact information. )

There has been no attack launched against you. All that happened is that someone linked to your blog from here. Maybe you got a couple of comments you didn’t like. That’s not an attack. That’s just one of the hazards of publishing your work in a public venue: people will disagree, and people will link. The good news is that you are free to moderate your comments and to block links from Stinkin’ Thinkin’ (you didn’t have to delete your post — you could have just blocked the link and deleted the comment/s). You are the master of your domain.

I can guarantee you, though, that we have no interest in storming your blog — not because of your legal threat, which is silly, nor because your serenity seems just a wee bit unstable — but because we don’t storm blogs, and because we’re clearly not welcome on your blog.

(However, now that we are aware that you are a whackjob — a fact I was unaware of until I saw your Serenity Bomb and your gun barrel — we might check in on what you’re up to time and again.)